I forgot to post a picture of me in my hot new bathing suit and hotter new t-shirt

And if you can’t read it, the t-shirt says:

“Keepin it nerd free, with my TI-83″

SAHARA

Sahara. It was one of those movies that I knew existed only because of the heavily paparazzi’d romance between its costars (in this case, Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz). It did not have a very long theater run, and I almost considered not watching it on my plane ride from Reagan to Salt Lake City. However, it was free, and I figured it would help time pass. Plus, Mr. McConaughey and Ms. Cruz ain’t so bad to look at.

Note to Alicia: short theater runs generally mean that the movie sucked.
I’ve decided for this review to make a little list. Hopefully, I will save you from any movie that even remotely resembles “Sahara.”

1. Curse you, Dan Brown, and your terrible writing and bad adventure genre. You and your ridiculous “novels” have spawned American interest in tremendous wastes of time and money, such as “National Treasure” and this movie, “Sahara”, wherein MacGyver-like “normal guys” search out buried treasure and conspiracy secrets and END UP SAVING THE WORLD from bad guys, the Illuminati, and/or disease! And by god, getting the girl!
Note to America: Guys!! Dan Brown can’t write!! Try Steinbeck!!

2. Penelope Cruz, you are stunningly beautiful. In fact, I am very jealous of you, because you’re not only gorgeous, you have a cute accent, and guys go for that accent thing. And, you’re quite a good actress - in “Abre Los Ojos” you were incredible. However, does moving to Hollywood mean that you have to perform in schlock? I mean, seriously, this dialogue was pitiful. Who is your agent? My advice is: get a new one. And stop dating your co-stars. (Do you regret the Tom Cruise thing? I bet you do.)

3. Why doesn’t the funny sidekick ever get the girl? Ever since “Pretty in Pink”, when it was so obvious that Ducky should have gotten the girl, not Mr. I-Have-Money-But-No-Personality, I have been saddened by the lack of geek romance in films. I guess that’s why the 1988 TV movie “Dance ‘Til Dawn” is one of my personal favorites: the beautiful popular girl falls for the nerd after an eventful prom night. Ahhh. Teen angst and romance. I am sucked in so easily.

In any case, in Sahara, Steve Zahn plays a very funny and cute sidekick who dismantles a bomb at The Crucial Moment and lets Mr. McC save the lovely Penelope. He gets no reward, yet MM gets to frolic with PC on the shores of Monterrey. What’s up, Hollywood? Let’s give these sidekicks hot girlfriends. And no, purple multi-tentacled aliens (a la Galaxy Quest) do not count.

4. Dear movie directors of America,
If you stretch the limits of reality more than once — as in having main characters defy rebel gunfire in the middle of the Sahara Desert over and over again without any visible means of obtaining drinking water, and then having them climb onto a moving train from the backs of camels that they just learned how to ride (and by the way, that thing about the Civil War-era iron clad ship being depicted in a cave drawing was totally ludicrous) — I will lose interest in your movie and get up and go to the bathroom.
Sincerely,
Alicia

This morning has not started off superbly. After mistakenly staining my dress shirt with a spray of turkey grease and realizing all too late that my undershirt was backwards, in two seperate incidents I was greeted with the wrong name by my co-workers.

“good morning Dave… I mean mike”

and

“good morning Steve… uh… mike.”

But all is well, because this past weekend brought me to Hampton Beach in NH. Jill and I went up there for a day trip on Saturday. It was great. Jill packed the foodstuffs, of which we ate a plenty, and we enjoyed a day in the sun and water. Tragically, just before we were going to go swimming Jill’s swimsuit snapped. Her fast thinking resulted in her Not flashing the beach, and we quickly got her under a towel. I quickly switched from mild mannered mike d. to Mechanical Engineering Man and set to fixing the suit.

The mechanism was such:

I’ve drawn a faux crack at the point of failure. this would not be an easy fix.

Jill and I took inventory:

1: a book bag with some magazines
2: a cooler filled with food
3: a bottle opener keychain
4: my camera
5: towels and other beach standards
6: my bathing suit

The keychain was the obvious first solution. That metal circular clasp things on all keys might prove useful. So, I slipped that into the left side of the broken suit. Then I realized that my swim suit had a useless weird tag thing. It was plastic and looked like a saw. Here’s a picture. also in the picture is the broken clasp. jill’s pointing to the broken clasp.

after cutting of the piece of string that was being used to hold on that weird saw tag thing, I was able to tie through the metal keychain and the previous clasp. The result was a fully working swim suit with a slightly oversized tie:

Once again, Mechanical Engineering Man has come to the rescue.

This weekend Sander Jesse and I also made an 18 lb turkey with delicious gravy. So if you’re hungry, feel free to stop by the House of Rock this week. We’ll feed you.

Please note, there is also a movie review up by alicia. Enjoy!